divide me down to the smallest i can be
by SHSL Slacker
Summary: Seven unrelated oneshots for WakaSeo Week. (Day 6: Singing.)
1. you're the only friend i need

**WakaSeo Week, Day 1: Insomnia. (Chapter) Title from Ribs - Lorde. (As for the fic title in itself - you'll know soon.)**

* * *

His wall clock reads one in the morning. It's been a while since he hasn't fallen asleep right away after listening to a few songs, but unfortunately, it looks like tonight is one of those nights, where he can't fall asleep no matter what happens. The sounds outside, dogs barking, cars honking - each sound is so loud to his ears. It's not like _that's_ ever bothered him before - usually, it's the still-open lights outside that are too bright, or the blankets are too thick or too thin - something like that. Trivial things. The sounds, he supposes, are just the new additions.

His hand is still gripping his phone. Maybe that's why. Sadly, he doesn't feel up to it to stand up and put it somewhere, or maybe charge it for the next day. So it remains there, beside him, on his bed. Probably down to ten percent. On a whim, he opens it and checks - the battery percentage reads nine. One percent worse.

But now that it's open, he figures he should do something with it. He tries navigating his way to his messages, just to check who he'd texted last, but he'd only had one eye opened and hadn't bothered to open the other. Plus, everything is just blurry right now. He should be sleeping, he reminds himself, but of course, nothing happens. His phone is still open. He might as well, right? Where the hell is he, anyway? These aren't his messages. Are they?

He taps something that looks like it could be tapped, just for the hell of it. The words **Seo-senpai** pop up on a dark screen, which is about the same time Wakamatsu _really_ wakes up. He smashes the red _end call_ button so hard, his screen should have cracked, then breathes a sigh of relief. Alright. So these are, in fact, _not_ his messages. He sets his phone down somewhere on the other side of his bed and dutifully ignores it.

For about five seconds.

Wakamatsu grabs the ringing phone and pales at the incoming call. He answers it anyway, just to be polite. "S... Seo-senpai?"

"Waka?"

"I-I'm sorry! I must've woken you up, the call was an accident, I wasn't-"

"Sure, sure," Seo says on the other end, yawning loudly, before continuing. "I was awake, anyway. Don't worry 'bout it."

"You were... awake?" Wakamatsu's eyes flicker upwards to the wall clock again. 1:04. "At this time?"

"Couldn't sleep. You too?"

"... Yes," Wakamatsu says, now hoping Seo isn't actually planning on having an entire conversation because of one wrong call. "Normally I can sleep with Lorelei's songs, but I guess tonight is, well, one of those nights."

Seo hums, sounding like she's thinking something over. "Well, since we both can't sleep, and I feel like having an adventure-"

"Seo-senpai, no."

"-I'll be at your place in ten!"

Then she hangs up. Wakamatsu pulls the phone away from his ear to stare at his screen blankly. He wishes he could have the opportunity to lie down and sleep, but he knows he'll _never_ be able to close his eyes against Seo Yuzuki - t-that is, he means he can't sleep with the incessant noise she's bound to make once she calls again to notify him that she's here. That's all he meant.

He stands up and changes out of his pajamas into a plain shirt and a pair of pants, for decency's sake, even if every muscle in his body is yelling at him to get the hell back to his bed, lie down, and ignore the inevitable phone call, but his phone is already ringing when he pulls a jacket over his head. Seo is yelling something that ends with "- _and don't you fucking forget it!_ "

"Seo-senpai?" Wakamatsu is almost afraid to ask.

"Oh, Waka." Something makes a _thud_ noise in the background. "Some of the alley guys. Don't worry 'bout it."

Wakamatsu is _definitely_ afraid. "Well, um..."

She laughs- no, cackles. Wakamatsu feels rather sorry for those she lives near with. "It's a daily thing. No idea why they're still awake, though. Anyway, your house was this way, wasn't it? Mm..."

Seo goes on and on about the directions to his house and takes much longer than ten minutes to get to his front door with all the times she backtracks after taking a wrong turn (or two). Wakamatsu actually dozes off once or twice in between her rambling, but it's only ever for a few seconds, which is the worst thing, because if there's anything he wants at the moment, it's for him to fall asleep and _stay_ asleep for the rest of the night. Sadly, he stays up, if only because Seo seems to sense whenever he starts nodding off and immediately raises her voice to something Wakamatsu is fairly sure wakes up half the country.

Then: "I'm here, Waka!"

Wakamatsu snores.

" _Waka!_ "

He jolts off the edge of his bed and nearly topples onto the floor if it isn't for his quick reflexes. "S-Seo-senpai?"

"I'm he-e-ere. Do you want me to ring the doorbell or something? Where _is_ your doorbell? Oh, is it this one-"

"No, don't." He sighs and tries to convince himself to stand up properly. Hopefully, Seo was only planning on something like a walk in the park and not visiting quarantined areas or something equally ridiculous. Right? "I'll be there, just please don't wake my parents up. They'll throw us both out of the house."

When he arrives at the front door, Seo is swaying on the balls of her feet, looking around like everything around them is interesting. The moment she sees him, though, she jumps up and grabs his wrist. Wakamatsu winces. "Hey, hey, Waka! There's this old abandoned house across the street where I live! Wanna go?"

"No."

She frowns, and it's a little unusual to see that on his senpai's face. Wakamatsu sighs, already resigned to the fact that his night was about to get a whole lot more... interesting. "Alright, _fine_. We're just going to look at it, and then back to bed, alright? It's one thirty in the morning."

"Ain't never stopped anyone before." Seo's frown melts into a grin, and she practically bounds away (presumably) towards where her house is, dragging Wakamatsu along behind her. Then she stops right in the middle of the sidewalk, looking around blankly. "... Oh," she says, after a little while, "looks like we're lost."

" _What!?_ "

"Hey, don't get your panties in a twist," she says, turning a corner seemingly by random. "I'll just get us to my place the same way I got to yours."

Wakamatsu furrows his brow. "You mean by walking around with no idea on where you're going and hoping you get lucky?"

"Well, yeah. Pretty much. Hey, I know that house! I passed by it, like, twice trying to get to you."

In the end, when the duo finally manage to make their way back to Seo's house, it's already two in the morning and the blonde has been yawning sporadically for ten minutes. The moment she sees the familiar roof of her house, though, she springs up and a grin blooms on her face. "Hey, we're here!"

Wakamatsu is practically snoring by this point, but lifts his head up obediently and says something smart like "Huh wha?" Then, "This is your house, Seo-senpai? Make sure to get some sleep, it's really..." Yawn. "... really late..."

"What're ya talking about? We're heading over there!" She points dramatically towards an old, rundown house that looks like centuries of dust have settled upon it. "It's an adventure, didn't I tell you so?"

"... What?" he says weakly, out of lack of things to say. "But... But... what?" He doesn't even protest when she grabs his wrist (again) and drags him off (again) towards the dilapidated house. When they arrive at the front door, Seo is just about sparkling, while Wakamatsu is anything but. "Seo-senpai..."

"C'mon, I've been to this place hundreds of times!" She flashes him a thumbs-up, which does not necessarily make him feel any better about going into a house that looks like it could fall apart at any given moment. "Anyway, I think I did leave something in here the last time I came, so now's the perfect time to fetch it out."

"Can't I just stay out here?" Wakamatsu asks, even though he knows he doesn't have a choice anymore.

As expected, Seo says "no," and then promptly slams the door open. It's not locked, but even if it were, Wakamatsu suspects there wouldn't be much of a difference. In fact, he's seriously surprised the door didn't dissolve into dust right then and there. He steps inside cautiously after Seo's careless tromp, examining the floor for weak spots. He doesn't _think_ Seo would fall through a hole in the floor or something (mainly because, as she said, she's been here plenty of times to know enough about the floor, and because she's too light to put any real weight on the floor anyway), but he's certainly not an exception to that. He treads carefully, just so he won't fall into the basement and break his leg or something equally painful.

"This is a dangerous place to be," he mumbles. He can't even see anything in the dark further than the blonde, with only the faintest of lights coming from his phone. (Six, seven percent?) Seo seems to hear him, but doesn't reply. After a while, though, he speaks up again. "Seo-senpai?"

"Mm?"

"What... What exactly was the thing you lost? I might help find it..."

"Oh, that. Some music sheets for club, I think." She ducks into a room, and Wakamatsu immediately feels the whole house gets darker without her presence, but Seo comes back out within a fraction of a second. "Not there. 'Nyway, I was hoping I could practice here, just 'cause, but I went and lost the sheets, so I never got to finish that song... it was a nice song, too."

Then she walks away and trots down a rickety staircase. "I think I was here, last time, wasn't I? Hey, Waka?"

He follows, however reluctantly. "Yes?"

"Anything interesting happen lately?" she asks. "On my end, someone left a box of glitter pens outside the clubroom dedicated to Miki, but when I gave it to her, she broke down and had to be excused for the rest of the day. No idea what got into her, ya know?"

"Er..." He tries thinking of something Seo would call 'interesting', but can't remember anything from the top of his head, except the last time she had rammed him over the head with a basketball. "The math test earlier today... someone asked for my answer, and the teacher caught him, I guess."

"Boring," Seo declares immediately. "But what'd you say?"

"Nothing, obviously," Wakamatsu replies, sighing. "Though he did call me 'Waka'. That nickname of yours is really catching on, Seo-senpai-"

Seo stops dead in her tracks and whirls around so fast and so threateningly that Wakamatsu instinctively tenses for an orange ball to the face. Instead, though, she just fixes him with a completely blank stare that leaves reading her emotions out of the question. Wakamatsu hesitantly lowers his arms. "What'd he call you?"

He almost replies with his full name, just so Seo would stop _looking_ at him like that. But he can't lie, because that would be extremely stupid, seeing as he had very clearly just said the exact opposite of the lie a few seconds ago. "Waka," he says, after a while.

She frowns, and it's an honest-to-goodness frown - hell, she even looks angry about it. "You can't let anyone else call you that," she says, sounding remarkably similar to a petulant child. "It's _my_ name for you, and no one else's."

"I didn't know you could own a nickname, Seo-senpai," Wakamatsu remarks dryly.

"Well, now you do!" She looks like she's about to throw a fit right then and there, but thankfully doesn't, because Wakamatsu highly suspects that if she does, the whole house would crumble down and they'd be buried under the upper floors. "I don't wanna share, aight? You're _mine_ , and that's the end of it." Then she turns around and resumes her walk down to the lower floor - probably the basement.

Wakamatsu is about to sigh and head down after her and wonder how his life had degenerated enough for him to be following a person with questionable sanity down the basement of a dead house at two in the morning, and he does just that, but stops midway when he realizes what Seo had said. "Seo-senpai?"

"Can't hear you!"

"Seo-senpai! Hey, wait! D-Did you just say-"

She comes back up with a clear folder in hand, though it's laden with dust. "Found it," she declares, holding it up for Wakamatsu to clearly see. "Our business is done here, right? Let's go."

"B-But-" He sighs. He's not going to get any answers this way. "Alright, then."

Seo blinks at him for a moment, as if she's confused he gave up so quickly, but turns back around and leads the way out the house. Wakamatsu hadn't even noticed how horrible the stench in there was until he got back out to fresh, clean air, which he inhales hungrily. God bless clean air.

He walks Seo back to her house, despite it literally just being across the street, because leaving right after that would be rude. While Seo's digging out her keys in her pocket, Wakamatsu fidgets in place - what had she _said?_ He supposes he could ask Sakura-senpai tomorrow, since she's Seo's best friend, but how would he even broach the topic? "Seo-senpai just said I was _hers_ or something like that and since you're a girl and her friend, do you have any idea what she means by this"? Absolutely not, she'd think he'd gone mad after a night with less than five hours of sleep...

"Why're you still standing there?" Seo asks, sounding mildly amused.

Wakamatsu jumps. "A-Ah, uh, Seo-senpai-"

"I mean what I said," she says, looking totally unconcerned, though she's clutching her folder hard enough for Wakamatsu to start worrying about her nails. "You... well, your nickname's mine. I just like to make up the rest." She shrugs and, ignoring Wakamatsu's stammers and protests, says "goodnight" and closes the door in his face. A moment later, a _click_ sound indicates the door is locked, and faint footsteps that eventually fade away.

The next day, Nozaki-senpai hands Wakamatsu Lorelei's newest song with some sort of pained expression, to which he claims excitedly. He follows through with his plan to talk to Sakura-senpai about Seo, though it's mostly just normal talk. "Though," Sakura says, after some thinking, "Yuzuki seemed to be working extra hard during club today..."

* * *

 **The next time I update: House Visit. (I've given up on bothering to write and finish a fic everyday, because school. Well, it's the thought that counts, right?)**

 _ **Slacker, 6/16/15**_

 **PS: If you like this, _do read Omega Zekrom's WakaSeo week entry as well_.**


	2. your eyes are the size of the moon

**WakaSeo Week, Day 2: House Visit. Title from Nine in the Afternoon - Panic! at the Disco.**

* * *

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [Friday, 18:34] _hey_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:35] _heeeey_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:35] _waka waka waka_

[ **waka** ] [18:35] _Seo-senpai I am trying to STUDY_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:36] _ugggh please_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:36] _clearly i am much more important than homework_

[ **waka** ] [18:36] _No... you're not_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:37] _well anyway_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:37] _i bought a new movie that was on sale! wanna watch it w/ me tmrw_

[ **waka** ] [18:38] _We have a TEST on Monday that will decide the course of our lives_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:38] _ugh dont be so dramatic_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:38] _anyway you know im waaay more fun than some homework_

[ **waka** ] [18:39] ? _?_? _Seriously?_? _?_? _?_?

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:39] _awwww cmoooon_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:39] _do it for ur SENPAI_

[ **waka** ] [18:40] _ALRIGHT I GET IT_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:40] _oh nice_

[ **Seo-senpai** ] [18:41] _tomorrow at ten! my parents and onii-chan will be at work so you can have lunch over too_

[ **waka** ] [18:41] _I'm going to regret this_

* * *

Wakamatsu is at the Seo's front door ten minutes to ten. He'd tried dressing a little plainer this time, though he doubts Seo would notice. He moves to ring the doorbell and hopes he's not going to be violently gutted by some sort of booby trap when the door swings open.

Right in his face.

Wakamatsu makes a strangled cry and stumbles away, clutching his nose. It's _bleeding_. The person behind the door makes an "oops" sort of sound, like "whoops I just slammed a door on your face and you're bleeding pretty badly, but no big deal, right?". In fact, that's exactly how he knows this is the person he's waiting for.

"Seo-senpai?"

"Heeey, Waka!" He doesn't need to look over at her to know she's grinning and totally oblivious to his very clear pain. "You're early! I wasn't expecting you 'til maybe eleven."

"Is that an insult?"

She elbows him in the side, which he _thinks_ was probably supposed to be playful, but it really only just adds to the overall pain level in his body already. "Ah, don't be like that! Come on, come on. Onii-chan's still here, though. Be nice. And we should probably bandage that nose of yours out. Did you fall on your face or something?"

Wakamatsu gives her a look, but lets it pass. Maybe her behavior will improve throughout the day. (He knows he's lying to himself, but whatever.) He enters with a mumbled "excuse me," and looks around for any potential hazards, like an older, male Seo.

"... Hm? Who's that, Yuzuki?"

"A friend!" Seo calls back, not even glancing back at the kitchen, where the voice seemed to have come from. Wakamatsu instinctively inches closer to her. If her brother is anything like her, at least he knows Seo Yuzuki more. "He won't be staying long. Well, too long, anyway."

Something makes a _crash_ sound in the kitchen, then suddenly the scrabbling of rapid footsteps. The kitchen door slams open, reminiscent of the front door slamming on Wakamatsu's nose. The student in question flinches at the reminder. A man who somewhat resembles Seo is glaring daggers at him, which Wakamatsu guesses is not exactly supposed to make him feel welcome. "' _He'_!? What do you think _you're_ going to be doing with my sister!? Home alone, in her _room_ -"

"Watching a movie," Seo says in a matter-of-fact voice.

Her brother immediately relaxes. "Oh. Well, okay." He retreats back into the kitchen, then immediately darts back out. "Is his nose bleeding?"

Seo glances over at him. "Uh... yeah."

"You should get him something for that." He ducks back into the kitchen, and this time, the sounds of clanging pots and pans come out from it.

"Yeah, sure," Seo replies, moving over to a table and digging out some things from the drawer. "Uh, hey, what am I even supposed to get? A band-aid? Will a band-aid do?"

"A band-aid for _this?_ " Wakamatsu asks, but it mostly comes out as "a bab-aib bor _thib?_ ". It at least gets the point across, because Seo nods sagely and places the small pack of band-aids back in the drawer.

"Right, then," she murmurs, sifting through the various medical supplies. Wakamatsu worriedly notes that there is very little left. "I don't know. Hey, can I see your nose, anyway?" Without another word, she stands up on her tiptoes and wrenches his hands away from his nose, inspecting it curiously while the poor guy flails around, unbalanced. "Hey, it isn't so bad, looks like it's just a nosebleed! Just stuff some tissue up in there and you should be fine, right?"

"Press down on the nostril that's bleeding with some cloth," the Seo brother calls from the kitchen. "Drink some water, wash your face, put a wet towel on the bridge of your nose, maybe."

"Thanks, onii-chan," Wakamatsu grumbles, ignoring the annoyed look Seo shoots him. "Much more helpful. Where's your bathroom, Seo-senpai?"

"Second floor, third hallway from your left, first room on the right," she says without so much as a falter in her words. She closes the drawer with some unnecessary force and heads over to the kitchen. "Take yer time - I'll be down here if y' need me."

After Wakamatsu gets his nose to stop bleeding - he had looked at the red-tinted sink in the bathroom and silently apologized if his blood decided to stain there - he makes his way back down to the kitchen. Seo doesn't seem to be there, which only makes him more annoyed - _I'll be down here_ , yeah, right - but the elder Seo sibling is, so he approaches him with caution. "Ex... Excuse me?"

He turns around, and Wakamatsu blinks. He looks an awful lot like Nozaki's character, Oze-kun, now that he has a closer look. "Looking for Yuzuki, right?"

Wakamatsu nods, because he feels like this guy can kill him very painfully if he steps out of line.

"In her room, on the second floor, first hallway to your right. You'll know it's her room, since she makes it glaringly obvious," he adds as an afterthought. Then, "We haven't been introduced, have we? I'm Seo Ryousuke. Nice to meet you, uh, Yuzuki's male friend."

"I-I'm Wakamatsu Hirotaka!" He bows, because it's polite, though he doesn't feel comfortable exposing his back to a Seo, despite Ryousuke's civility. "It's nice to meet you too, er... Ryousuke-kun."

Ryousuke nods, and the conversation seems to have stopped completely as he goes back to fixing something up. Wakamatsu is just about to awkwardly excuse himself when he speaks up again. "How'd you come to be friends with Yuzuki?"

"Er..." He's not even sure if he can classify the two of them as 'friends'. "I'm on the first-year's basketball team, and..."

"Oh, so you _are_ Waka," he comments offhandedly. A nice aroma is wafting throughout the kitchen. "She talks about you a lot, you know? Waka this, Waka that, Waka's coming over today, Waka's gonna watch a movie with me today, on and on. You should probably be flattered - she always gets excited talking about you."

Wakamatsu is fairly sure his entire face is seconds away from spontaneously combusting with how hot it feels. "U-Uh... does she!" _That was supposed to be a question,_ he mentally berates, _and your voice isn't supposed to be five octaves higher than normal. What's with you?_ "I don't know - I'm pretty sure it's more like she hates me, you know! Every time during basketball practice, she always aims the ball at me, even during break time... and makes me run errands for her... and makes me massage her shoulders... and she has me carry her stuff...! And, and-"

"-Doesn't she always bring you to family restaurants and pays for your food?" Ryousuke interrupts, sounding a mixture of amused and exasperated. "And whenever we travel, she's always picking out things saying, 'this looks like something Waka would like!'. I'd say she's pretty chummy to you, actually?"

"Eh..." A pause. Is she? She always seems to be the total opposite of such. But, he supposes, there _was_ that one time she bought him a cutter... yeah, that had been really nice of her. "I guess she can be nice sometimes..."

Ryousuke rolls his eyes, but there's a small smile that makes Wakamatsu think he knows a little bit more than he's letting on. "You should get going, yeah? Yuzuki isn't the most patient."

"Al... Alright. Er, excuse me."

* * *

Seo prepared a _horror movie_. Wakamatsu is clinging to her for practically the entire one hour and thirty minutes while she laughs manically at nearly everything.

* * *

 **Next time: Summer. (It's finished, so it'll be uploaded sometime soon. Cheers! It's available on my AO3, if you'd like to read it.)**

 _ **Slacker, 6/21/15**_


	3. getting you alone isn't easy to do

**WakaSeo Week, Day 3: Summer. Title from Stop the World I Wanna Get Off With You - Arctic Monkeys. Slightly inspired by Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. (Some Harry Potter elements below.)**

* * *

The first of them is right on his face when he wakes up. After a couple seconds of alarmed screaming at the sight of what looks like an _enormous_ white fly on his face, Wakamatsu calms down enough to see that it's a paper. It reads, _your senpai's name?_

"What?" he manages, before realizing it's in Seo's handwriting. He sets the paper down on his dresser and decides to take a bath before bothering to decipher what she's cooked up this time.

Once he freshens up and is marginally ready for the morning, he picks up the paper once more and sees that there's writing on the other side. _hey waka!_ it reads, and Wakamatsu is already annoyed. _what if i told you im in mortal danger?_

Wakamatsu chokes back a strangled yelp.

 _( hypoteh )_ ( _hypothethi )_ _hypothetically of course. what if im about to die and i have to make you help me with super vague notes? lets try that out! flip it over and play the game!_ And, of course, the other side has the strange question asking for 'his senpai's name'.

"Which senpai?" he asks himself, taking a seat on the bed and feeling a headache come on. Is this how Hori-senpai feels dealing with Kashima all the time? Oh, wait... "Hori-senpai?" he mumbles. "What does his name have to do with anything? _Is_ it Hori-senpai?" There _are_ a number of other meanings of 'hori' if written differently, Wakamatsu supposes. Like... Like a moat.

"A _moat,_ " Wakamatsu says to himself. "A... moat?" Or maybe a canal, he thinks. A canal is kind of like the modern version of a moat, right? Or is he getting his definitions mixed up? He stands up and sighs, before grabbing his phone. Maybe he should just check with Seo herself.

He goes to her voicemail three times before he realizes that Seo _literally_ means for him to figure it out himself. In this summer heat. Wakamatsu Hirotaka sets his phone down and wonders why he even bothers with this sort of thing before deciding to humor the girl. She did buy him that X-Acto knife. He figures he might as well. He calls her brother first, just to make sure this isn't some stupid prank she decided to play for the hell of it.

"Yuzuki?" Ryousuke mumbles, sounding half-asleep. "Oh, yeah - she woke me up a while ago and told me that if you called, then her one other clue is-" a pause. "-backgrounds-kun, was it?"

" _Who?_ "

"I don't know. It was either that or 'blinkgrowl-kun', and that doesn't sound quite right. Well, if that's all you called to say, then," Ryousuke says, and immediately hangs up. Wakamatsu pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it listlessly.

There are two things Seo-senpai must mean, he tells himself. Either I go look for the canal nearest to her place or I ask Hori-senpai what's going on. The safer choice would probably to ask Hori, so he calls him, but it (once again) goes to voicemail. Wakamatsu refrains from lying back down on his bed and crying, and instead heads outside. "The canal it is," he mumbles, trying not to think of how ridiculous this feels.

Wakamatsu sets off for Seo's house first, which is thankfully not too far away from his own. He briefly considers calling Ryousuke again, but decides not to, mainly because he figures the man probably wouldn't appreciate being called twice within an hour while asleep. So he starts looking around for the first canal he can find, and feeling especially foolish as he does so. "Hunting for canals," he mutters. "This is really how Seo-senpai intends my summer break to go."

He finally finds one after twenty minutes of walking around the same area again and again (he becomes very well-acquainted with the street, too, such as where _every single restaurant_ _is_ ), and finds the second paper taped onto a streetlight just next to the canal. It reads _you actually went through with this! amazing. ok, your next clue: where do cats go at daytime?_

"Anywhere in the house," Wakamatsu says automatically, before realizing Seo probably means the stray ones. "Hm... daytime, huh? Maybe they go look for food, like breakfast. So... a restaurant?"

A momentary pause. Wakamatsu takes a good look around him and realizes he already has the street memorized like the back of his hand. "What on earth?" he grumbles. "Is this some sort of magical canal that only shows itself after twenty minutes of walking in this street? Seo-senpai... did she _plan_ this or something?"

Nevertheless, he obediently starts scouring the nearest restaurants, but finds nothing after half an hour of looking through garbage cans and generally looking like a beggar who had taken a bath and stolen some clothes, if that made sense. He sighs and mutters gibberish under his breath after casually looking up from the trash bin next to _Bubba Gump Shrimp Tokyo_. "If not a restaurant," he mumbles, "then where do cats go at nighttime? Don't they prowl the streets and everything? Hm... cats... cats like boxes, don't they?"

Wakamatsu finds a novelty store selling a number of plastic boxes, but turns up with nothing after individual searching. He sighs and heads over to the counter, practically burning up with embarrassment by this point, as the saleslady behind the counter, along with a short-haired girl, had been looking over at him in confusion for near over five minutes by now. "Excuse me."

"... Yes?"

"I was wondering," Wakamatsu starts, "if someone... someone around this tall with blonde hair came through here."

The lady smiles, though she has an expression on her face that says 'why do I put up with these teenagers, for God's sake, I better get my money's worth by the end of the month'. "There was, actually. She told Mitsumoto-kun to tell someone who looks like you to 'look around for a nice, comfortable cat box', or something like that..." she pauses. "I believe he also said the lady had mentioned something about being on the right track..."

"Thank you," Wakamatsu says, and hastily sets off to start inspecting every single box the store has to offer. Another five minutes pass before he finally finds one of moderate size, fit for an especially fat cat and/or lots of bags of chips, and the third note stuck on the inside. Wakamatsu idly wonders how she had gotten away with sticking a paper in a box anyone can pick up and decide to buy, but decides he's better off not knowing. (The box _had_ been deep inside the shelves and totally bland and boring. Just how smart is Seo-senpai?)

 _i bet you went around looking in the restaurants,_ the note reads, and Wakamatsu can just _feel_ the smugness emanating from the paper. He barely restrains himself from crumpling the thing into a ball and stuffing it in _Bubba Gump Shrimp Tokyo_ 's trash bin. _surprise, though! cats like boxes, of course they'd go to one to sleep. oh, i bet you thought they'd go eat breakfast or something? cats sleep during the day, DUHHH. but i'll let that pass, 'cause im a great senpai like that. ok, next clue: wingardium leviosa._

"Wingardium...?" He trails off, realizing the words are way too familiar to not get right away. " _Harry Potter?_ Really? What on earth does _that_ mean? Is she telling me to search every single _Harry Potter_ -based store in Japan?"

No, wait, he tells himself. Hold up there. Don't go too fast. The most popular _Harry Potter_ place in Japan...

Wakamatsu pulls out his phone and asks the saleslady for their wi-fi password. Mercifully enough, he manages to connect with little fuss and immediately types _harry potter in japan_ on Google. The first five results all have _Universal Studios_ in the little snippets. "Oh," he says dumbly, pocketing his phone and silently applauding Seo for picking a novelty store that has internet connection.

He takes the train to the place, which is packed with people, and makes his way towards the _Harry Potter_ attraction there as fast as he can. The lines are unbearably long and it's already lunchtime when he arrives inside the site, so he buys himself some butterbeer to take a rest. "Even so," he mutters, "this place is huge. Where the heck am I going to start...?"

"Excuse me," the person manning the butterbeer counter says, snapping Wakamatsu out of his thoughts, "but might your name happen to be 'Waka'?"

"... Yes," Wakamatsu says cautiously, accepting the cup of butterbeer handed to him. "Did a blonde girl...?"

The person nods, looking almost amused at his expression, which Wakamatsu supposes can be described as 'just been run over by a couple of trains and had an airplane land on me'. "She told Kageyama-san to tell you that _wingardium leviosa_ can't be cast without a 'good old stick'. Do you know what that means, by any chance?"

"A stick-" Wakamatsu heaves a great sigh. "Thank you for that. And keep the change."

He heads over to _Ollivanders_ and asks the person behind the counter if a blonde had told him anything, but the employee just gives him a amused look and shakes his head, a sort of smile on his face that looks like he's wondering if the kid standing before him had lost his marbles. Wakamatsu makes the wise decision to head over to the wand boxes for Harry first, of course, because he's the main character and he really can't remember very much of anyone else apart from the main three.

"So she wants to make me search in every single wand box in this place," Wakamatsu says, staring at the one he had just opened. (It is quite nice.) "Charming."

He places the box back on the shelves and heads over to a display case, where all the available wands are shown. Bellatrix Lestrange's wand is oddly crooked, and he absentmindedly readjusts it, still contemplating on which shelf to start searching first. Then he stops and looks down at what he's doing. Bellatrix Lestrange... he can barely remember the name, but isn't she supposed to be a bad guy? In fact... doesn't this character seem like the sort of person Seo-senpai would like?

Wakamatsu heads over to the shelf labeled _Bellatrix Lestrange_ and starts opening boxes as fast as he can. It's his twenty-something box when he sees the fourth note wrapped around the wand, the box having been hidden deep in the shelves. Wakamatsu chances a look around, and sees the employee staring at him, before he shrugs, like _she told me not to say anything!_ Wakamatsu sighs and unfolds the note.

 _you actually made it this far! im proud. ok, last one: siren away the shore #7 verse 2. (if its past lunch, can you bring some food? i dont care what, but oniichans stuff would be nice.)_

"But that's..." He stares at the note a little more. He's _sure_ Seo-senpai knows about Lorelei, with how much Wakamatsu talks about her, but isn't _Siren Away the Shore_ the special edition album that had sold out within ten minutes? How could she possibly know about that, much less the songs and the _lyrics?_ "Maybe she's actually a fan," he reasons, pocketing the note and pulling out his phone. There's no internet connection here, so he can't search up the lyrics on Lorelei's fansite, but he's got it in his notes anyway.

"Number seven... does she mean the seventh song?" Wakamatsu scrolls down until he finds the title, _Hope You're Mine_ , and the second verse, which reads:

 _away, away, near to my place and further from you_

 _tomorrow I will search for you, the endless blue_

 _can you see me, my love, above and away? I am right here_

 _to the place of the fright, the cool and the clear_

"So it's near her house, but further from mine?" Wakamatsu guesses, because he figures that if he's Seo, he'd just take the lyrics as literally as possible. "Endless blue... what, so maybe it's near the ocean? Or high up, like the sky and everything? _The place of the fright_... somewhere scary, so maybe some sort of shack by the shore of the ocean?"

"Um, are you going to buy that?" a voice asks from behind him, and Wakamatsu nearly jumps three feet in the air. An annoyed black-haired teenage girl is glaring at him, arms crossed. "You're blocking the way to Bella's wands. Mind moving a little?"

"R-Right, sorry," Wakamatsu stammers, heading towards the counter in complete disarray. Seo Yuzuki's stupid game is making his brain addled enough that he nearly ends up leaving the store with Bellatrix Lestrange's wand _still_ in hand. He ends up buying it despite the ludicrous price and his painfully thin wallet, mainly because he doesn't feel like going back to where the girl is, and because he figures he could use it to do something like _wingardium leviosa_ Seo-senpai into her house and never bother him again. He takes the train back home, walks all the way to Seo's house again (and decides to take some of the leftover cake Ryousuke-kun had stuffed in the fridge) , and surveys his surroundings.

"Okay," he starts. "So near the ocean, or some body of water. Right..." The canal, he thinks. It'd make sense. But Seo-senpai doesn't seem like the type to use something she had already done. He shrugs and figures it's worth a try anyway, since it's the nearest body of water he can think of and he doesn't feel like heading back to the novelty store to look up Google Maps.

When he arrives at the canal, he brings his phone out again and rereads the verse. " _Fright_..." Perhaps he should start by searching dark places around it? He pockets his phone and sighs, realizing he had lost most of his dignity by this point, and that crawling around and looking under rocks doesn't even sound totally horrible to him anymore. Wakamatsu follows the canal a few ways until he spots a dark alley, and ducks into it after a short prayer. If Seo-senpai is really here, he thinks, then maybe she'll help out if I get jumped by some thugs or something...

Much to his gladness, there is no jumping by some thugs, nor are there any people in the near vicinity at all. The next line is _cool and clear_ , he remembers, so maybe the alley leads to an open space, like a forest opening up to a clearing. Sadly, he just reaches a dead end, and turns around to head back out with a disappointed sigh when something white catches his eye.

Even in the dim darkness, he still manages to read the fifth note with the light of his phone. _i lied, that wasn't actually the last clue i have. props to you for spotting this and getting this far, though. another one, since it is pretty hard to reach - how about some jumping?_

"Jumping?" Wakamatsu parrots, ignoring the way his voice resembles a squeak. He looks around and spots a variety of trash bins, all looking about as sturdy as a sheet of soggy paper. Does Seo-senpai _really_ mean for him to try _jumping_ on one and reach... wherever it is she wants him to be? A quick glance upwards reveals that there is actually a half of a rope ladder hanging off what looks like the window of a house. Wakamatsu redirects his gaze downwards, looking for a door, but when he tries the (very rusty) doorknob, it refuses to so much as turn. (He doesn't even know if it's locked, or if it's just the rust that prevents it from opening.)

Yes. Seo-senpai _really_ means for him to jump on the trash bins and reach the rope ladder that may or may not be supported and sturdy enough for him to cling on.

Wakamatsu tries putting his weight on a low one, for starters, and to see exactly how much his life is in danger. It surprisingly holds one foot, and so he tentatively steps on it with both feet. It trembles a little, but stays upright and doesn't crumble to dust, break down into pieces, or start showering him with cockroaches and rats. He nods approvingly, trying not to think that Seo is _seriously_ a lot smarter than she lets on, and moves it towards the wall. Maybe he can just step on it and use it as a sort of elevated platform. He stretches up and - mercifully - the tip of the rope ladder is just low enough for him to be able to reach and grab. He sends whatever deity is watching over him a giant thank-you when the ladder doesn't fall down after a quick tug, and hastily climbs upwards and squeezes himself into the dirty, opened window.

The inside of the house is filthy and covered with a layer of dust thick enough to be a blanket. There are upturned chairs, couches, and other pieces of furniture everywhere, several broken in half or worse. The distinct smell of rot hangs in the air heavily. Wakamatsu shivers. Definitely _the place of fright_. What he doesn't get is the _cool and clear_ part. Exactly what part of this is _cool and clear_?

Wait. He backtracks a little. The second line had been _the endless blue_ , which he had taken to mean the canal, since he had followed it to head down into the alley. But his second thought about it - the sky. _Above_ this place is definitely cool and clear, since it would be quite windy during the summer, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky last time he had checked.

So, he thinks. The roof.

The house seems to be completely empty, except for the sixth note on one of the tables, which simply reads _you're better at this than i thought, huh, waka?_ He makes his way through the rooms, searching for something like stairs or whatever, and trying not to look over his shoulder every few seconds. The place is utterly _terrifying_ , which only makes Wakamatsu surer and surer that this is Seo's favorite place to hang out in. Without really thinking about it, he brings out Bellatrix Lestrange's wand and holds it tightly in his right hand, just in case it turns out that a group of thugs had decided to make this place their base or something like that. He could poke one of them in the eye and distract them long enough for him to jump out of the nearest window.

Eventually, he finds a door that looks like it had been recently opened, and pushes it carefully, because it looks way too delicate to be a door at all. There are stairs leading upwards, and a narrow slit of light shining on the dust, so Wakamatsu immediately rushes up the steps, hungry for fresh air. He throws open the trapdoor and climbs out into blinding sunlight and cool, crisp afternoon air.

A familiar silhouette is sitting by the edge, her back facing him. Panting slightly, Wakamatsu calls; "Seo-senpai!"

Seo doesn't even turn around. Heck, she probably doesn't even blink. "Did'ja bring food, Waka?"

He blinks, before realizing he still has the leftover cake stuffed in his backpack, where he had also kept the six notes and Bellatrix Lestrange's wand box. (He quickly pockets the wand itself, feeling rather embarrassed now.) "Ryousuke-kun gave me some cake..."

"Perfect!" And _now_ she turns around, looking positively radiant. Her entire frame is practically shining like the sun above them right now. "I'm _super_ hungry, since I thought you'd come here a lot faster than that."

"You sent me all the way to Universal Studios. And _back_ ," Wakamatsu says, inches away from whining. "What were you _thinking_ , Seo-senpai?"

"You know, the sort of thing I usually use as a reason when I go out in the rain," Seo replies offhandedly, standing up and walking over to him to wrench his backpack off. "'Cause I wanted to, yeah? Onii-chan showed me this book he borrowed from Chiyo, this was the whole plot. I thought it looked cool, so I wanted to try it."

"You mean there wasn't a point in all this?" Wakamatsu cries out, grabbing his bag away from Seo and shoving the very first note into her face. "You said you were in _mortal danger!_ "

"I said _hypothetically_ ," Seo corrects, pointing at the word that had clearly been misspelled twice. "Y'know? If I was _hypothetically_ in mortal danger - would that make you come here faster? I wanted to know, y'see."

"I went as fast as I could."

Seo shoves a forkful of cake in her mouth. "You took your time getting cake from onii-chan."

"You _asked_ for it," Wakamatsu defends, pulling out the fourth note. Seo shrugs, like _guess you're right, huh?_ Then, after a moment of silence where the only sound is Seo murdering her slice of cake with her fork, Wakamatsu deigns to ask, "About Lorelei..."

"Yeah? That's my favorite song," Seo says, seemingly having anticipated the question long before it had been asked, as she continues without looking back up at Wakamatsu, who is still standing while the blonde is sitting down, legs crossed without a care in the world. "I still dunno why it's the seventh song, really. Should've been first."

"I agree," Wakamatsu says, trying not to sound as confused as he feels. "Er, that verse-"

"Personal favorite," she interrupts. "But the chorus flows pretty well, too. Uh, what were the lines again?"

" _Beyond my dreams I'll come and take you away_ ," Wakamatsu recites, the words burned into his brain already. " _But if you so wish, then I'll sit here with you and watch the leaves sway / Beyond my dreams and above the clouds, I'll draw the line / It's just a little lonely down here, don't you think it's_ _alright_ -"

"- _to hope you're mine?_ " Seo finishes, and Wakamatsu can feel his head going hazy, but she doesn't stop there and continues with the bridge; " _I'll stop and stare and watch your back / Don't go, don't go, you're something I'll always lack / If I so wish, if I so wish / Would it be alright to ask for just one kiss?_ "

"Seo-senpai?" Wakamatsu mumbles, already curled up on the ground. Seo hums softly and moves over closer to him, placing his head on her lap with surprising gentleness.

" _So beyond my dreams, I'll come and take you away,_ " she continues, her voice growing softer - or is Wakamatsu just getting sleepier? " _But if you so wish, if you so wish, then I'll sit here with you and watch the leaves sway... Beyond my dreams and above the clouds, I'll draw the line / It's just a little lonely down here... don't you think it's alright to hope you're mine?_ "

Wakamatsu wakes up at five in the afternoon in his bed, the ghostly, lingering voice of Lorelei still haunting his mind. " _Just one kiss_ ," he remembers, and flushes bright red.

The summer sun is still shining out the window. Wakamatsu pulls the curtains closed and opens up his backpack. The notes are gone as well as his wand box, replaced by the last, seventh note. _thnx for the wand, waka!_ (A quick check also confirms that his pocket only holds his phone.) _always thought that thing was too expensive, but you bought this as a gift for me, right? arent you a nice guy? ive wanted that wand since last christmas, man. early christmas gifts are always nice, so i left you one too!_

The back of the paper has a long link, mostly comprised of nonsensical letters and numbers. Wakamatsu sighs and plugs the link into his computer (which, quite conveniently, is already turned on; he suspects Seo had been the cause), which results into a file titled 'lol happy xmas ' downloaded into his computer before he even has a chance to cancel it.

A few months later, Wakamatsu realizes that he had gotten the deluxe edition of Lorelei's newest album long before it had gone public.

* * *

 **Next time: Practice. (The Harry Potter mentions above are, I suppose, a form of foreshadowing...)**

 _ **Slacker, 6/23/15**_


	4. then i see you

**WakaSeo Week, Day 4: Practice. Title from Campus - Vampire Weekend. (It's a Hogwarts AU!)**

* * *

"Looks like the next match is Hufflepuff versus Slytherin," Sakura comments casually, looking over the Quidditch schedule and smiling in excitement. "You're going up against Yuzuki for the first time in an official match, Wakamatsu-kun!"

"Sounds great," Wakamatsu says, repressing the urge to heave the contents of his stomach into the nearest toilet. The idea of facing Seo Yuzuki, the unbeatable Beater (at least according to rumors; one look at her on the pitch makes these rumors _very_ credible, however), makes him feel like he should just drop out of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team while he can. But the sport has always been a fun sort of thing for him, and one person shouldn't ruin _everything_ for him - right? He swallows nervously and nods. "Y-Yeah. There's practice today, so maybe - maybe I could see if there's anything I can do against her."

Someone slides into the space next to him on the table. Wakamatsu picks at his eggs, contemplating ways on making his Comet Two-Sixty turn faster so he can successfully evade every Bludger Seo decides to throw at him, when the person beside him speaks up. "Hey, Waka!"

The poor second-year jumps about three feet in the air. "S-S-Seo-senpai!"

"The match is next week, eh?" The blonde grins, slinging an arm around his shoulder a little too casually for Wakamatsu to _not_ be suspicious. "We've got practice today, so get ready for a good ol' bashing!"

" _What?_ " Wakamatsu squeaks. "P-Practice today?"

"Didn't ya hear me? Slytherin team booked the arena for... uh, three in the afternoon, I think."

"But that's-!" He manages to make up a short list of feeble excuses before realizing that this isn't going to work out. Hufflepuffs haven't beaten Slytherins in these sorts of things in years. "I... um... but we..."

Seo brings out a crumpled note from her pocket, a familiar signature scribbled near the bottom. "Snape signed it already, so we have total permission to have the arena to ourselves! How about that?"

Wakamatsu hastily excuses himself from the table and rushes as fast as he can to the Hufflepuff Captain, who's sitting at the edge of the table with his circle of friends. "T-Tanaka-senpai! The... The Slytherins..."

After he relays what Seo had told him, Tanaka looks ready to blow a fuse, but manages to keep himself under control. "Yamamura can't join us any later after four, since he's got that detention with Filch, and we _definitely_ won't be able to secure a signature from Professor Sprout without _someone_ from the Slytherin team butting in about how they got a signed form first..." He groans and massages his temple. "But we can't afford to lose the match next week, and one practice session can change everything... along with that, Ichigo can't attend practice on Tuesday because of his grandma's funeral... fine. We'll have to just share the pitch."

"We _what?_ " Wakamatsu yelps.

"Share the pitch," Tanaka says, as if that's supposed to answer the whole question, which it _doesn't_. "We'll get the Slytherins to take turns with us in using the pitch. They get twenty minutes for themselves, then we switch in and practice for twenty. So on and so forth."

"That is not going to work," Wakamatsu replies, because it won't.

Tanaka knows that much, but he doesn't seem to want to admit it. With a sigh, he turns back to his food and stares at his half-finished plate in disinterest. "We don't have a choice, do we? Worst case scenario, we'll have to fight the Slytherins in a 'friendly practice match' or some other thing like that, but we are _not_ giving up a practice session unless we want to be completely annihilated next week. Tell your friend about it, will you?"

"She's not my friend," Wakamatsu protests weakly, but turns around and heads back to his spot in the table anyway. Sakura is chatting amicably with Seo, with no hostility visible between them at all. A large number of the Hufflepuffs who had been sitting near Sakura had hastily moved away at the sight of the blonde, though. Wakamatsu takes a seat beside Sakura, feeling resigned. "Seo-senpai?"

"We ain't sharing the pitch," Seo says bluntly, reaching over and plucking some bacon off of Wakamatsu's plate. The Hufflepuff doesn't even care by this point, nor does he bother questioning how Seo had known. The Slytherin has her ways, and Wakamatsu is fairly sure he would be much better off not knowing about them.

"Why not?" he asks dryly. "You've nothing to lose, right?"

"Mm..." she chomps down on the bacon and takes her time chewing it before replying. "How about you and I practice, just the two of us, right now? I've got time, and it's Saturday morning. No way am I going to be spending my day writing that essay Binns gave us."

"Professor Binns gave us an essay?" Sakura yelps. "Ohh, _no_..."

Wakamatsu spares her an apologetic pat on the back before turning back to Seo. "If you really think I'm going to let you slam a Bludger in my face every few seconds," he starts, doing his utmost best to glare at her threateningly, "then you've got another thing coming..."

"That's cute," Seo says, looking like she's refraining from rolling her eyes to spare what little is left of his dignity. (That's a rather uncharacteristically nice thing she's doing, Wakamatsu notices.) "Well, you ready? C'mon, no one's there yet. Get your sorry broom and meet me out on the pitch, yeah?"

Wakamatsu doesn't get a chance to reply before Seo slides off the chair and heads out of the Great Hall. While Sakura frets over the unknown essay, Wakamatsu wonders if it's too late to leave Hogwarts and live with his Muggle parents for the rest of his life.

* * *

"Your broom is pathetic," Seo says, sitting on her Firebolt and picking at her nails. "Have I told you that before?"

"Thank you," Wakamatsu grumbles, swinging a leg over his own broom and rising steadily into the air, just level with the Slytherin. "What are you planning? You don't have Madam Hooch's permission to-"

A Bludger collides against his face before Wakamatsu has a chance to so much as _attempt_ to duck out of the way. Thankfully, it seems to have had a weak Cushioning Charm cast on it, because his nose isn't bleeding _too_ badly. Somewhere in the distance, he can vaguely hear the cackling of Seo Yuzuki swooping around the pitch on her entirely too-fast broom, swinging her Beater's bat wherever she can reach.

" _Seo-senpai!_ "

"What?" She laughs. "This is fun, isn't it, Waka? C'mon, use this!" Then she uses her bat to send a white object speeding towards him, which he thankfully manages to catch with his Chaser reflexes before it follows the Bludger's example. A closer look reveals it to be a golf ball with a smiley face painted on it. "Got it from my Squib cousins! Use it as your Quaffle, and let's see how we fare against each other, eh?"

Left without too much of a choice, Wakamatsu dives towards one of the hoops, and just narrowly avoids a Bludger speeding towards him. The golf ball sails through the middle hoop, and he deftly catches it before it can fall to the ground. "Ten to zero," he mumbles, eyeing the whooping Seo as she flings the Bludger towards him again. This time, he doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and it catches the tail of his broom, knocking several of the twigs off. Precarious balance aside, this is actually starting off well, at least when compared to some of the other stories his upperclassmen share. Seo had actually knocked all three Chasers off of their brooms within five minutes of a Slytherin versus Ravenclaw match at one point, at least according to Nozaki-senpai.

Wakamatsu scores twice (thirty points!) before the Bludger crashes against his arm and sends him speeding to the ground. Someone screams. It's probably him, though he swears his voice can't possibly be that high. He scrabbles for his broom, but it completely disappears somewhere else he can't reach and, with no other choice left, he tenses himself for the impact against the ground. Hopefully, he won't break more than three bones.

A pair of arms catch him right out of mid-air. "Gotcha," Seo sings - her voice sounds _awfully_ familiar, but Wakamatsu dismisses the thought. Before he can react, Seo places him behind her on the Firebolt and grabs hold of it once more, directing them to the ground in a much less painful manner. "I would have just left you to fall to your death if you were any other guy, but I can't exactly be blamed for murder against my fellow Quidditch players, eh? You alright, there?"

"I'm... okay," Wakamatsu says, ignoring the dull pain in his arm. Moving it doesn't sound like a very good idea, right now. "Um, thanks for catching me, then, Seo-senpai... but..."

"Oh, your broom?" She scoffs. "It's _probably_ still usable, but don't bother. You can use my old Nimbus, how about that? Maybe then you'll be a bit more of a challenge."

"I got thirty points before you sent me careening off my broom," Wakamatsu says.

"I was holding back!" The moment Wakamatsu steps off the Firebolt, Seo zooms back up into the air, surveying the area before diving towards a particular area. When she comes back to where Wakamatsu is standing, she dumps a bent Comet Two-Sixty by his feet. "Now you've _really_ got no choice. It's my Nimbus or the school's Cleansweeps, and those _suck_."

Wakamatsu scoops up what's left of his old, loyal broom and stares at it uncomprehendingly. "T... This was a gift from Nozaki-senpai!"

"Well, it wasn't a very durable gift, was it," Seo remarks boredly. "Nozaki, huh... ain't he the Ravenclaw guy who's always hanging out with Chiyo? He quit Quidditch in his second year, right? I reckon that was his old broom, he used a Comet Two-Sixty too when he was on the team."

Wakamatsu sighs and sits down, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "This was a hopeless practice from the start."

"You were going _really_ slow," Seo offers. "How about it? My Nimbus 2000 is a little sluggish, but it's at least two hundred ten percent better than that sad excuse for a broom."

"Please don't insult Nozaki-senpai's broom like that," Wakamatsu says, though it's a halfhearted plea. A Nimbus 2000... he would have the chance to ride a Nimbus 2000... and _Seo-senpai's_ broom of all brooms... It was bound to be broken in some places, perhaps because she would have crashed into others during her second year, where she first started playing Quidditch, but still, a _Nimbus 2000_... "All my brooms seem to be hand-me-downs," he concludes.

Seo brightens, which is almost as frightening as her cackles. "So you'll take it?" And before he can so much as say 'sure', she barrels on, "Hurry up, then! We're goin' to the Slytherin common room _right now!_ "

"Huh?" he squeaks.

"Slytherin. Common room. _Now!_ "

"But I'm not- I'm a Hufflepuff- your housemates are going to _tear me apart_ -"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic! Come on, come on!"

* * *

"Is that a _Nimbus 2000?_ " Tanaka gapes, self-consciously shuffling his Cleansweep Seven behind his back.

Wakamatsu shrugs and tries not to look too uncomfortable. "Uh... yes, my... friend... gave it to me..."

"Well, we'll _definitely_ be winning this match!" Yamamura declares, slapping the Chaser on the back. "Wakamatsu on one of those - I say, you might even be able to survive that Seo girl!"

"Ha, ha," Wakamatsu laughs, or at least tries to, paling considerably at how Seo would definitely not be 'holding back' with his new broom during the match. "Yeah. Definitely."

* * *

 **Next time: Sharing. (Hint: a popular game would be...) (Also, miscellaneous info is available in the AO3 version of this. Take a look if you'd like.)**

 _ **Slacker, 6/24/15**_


	5. can't go a minute without you

**WakaSeo Week, "Day" 5: Sharing. Title from Satellite - Lena. (So, yes, I finally got around to finishing this. Cheers! Most of this was written before Chapter 66, but the end part was written after.)**

* * *

"It's raining pretty hard," Wakamatsu says lamely. Beside him, Seo grunts in affirmation. He chances a glance towards her, noticing that she isn't making a move to go prancing about in the rain. "Er, aren't you...?"

"Nah, my books got _really_ wet last time and sensei got super mad at me," Seo replies, dangling a math textbook in front of her and staring at it quite crossly. Then she shrugs and places it back inside her bag. "I don't have an umbrella today, so I guess I'll just wait it out. What about you, Waka?"

"No umbrella either," Wakamatsu says, sighing and sitting down on the steps.

"Huh." Seo takes a seat beside him, her legs stretched out far enough that her feet are drenched by the rain in no time. She only looks all too happy about it, though, and starts splashing the puddle her feet are placed on.

Five minutes pass in agonizingly awkward silence - at least, it is for Wakamatsu. Seo looks totally at home, splashing water everywhere up to her ankles and drawing little circles in patches of mud. The rain seems to be getting worse, if anything. When Wakamatsu's sure he isn't going to be able to stand it anymore, Seo washes her hands in the rain and brings out a small rectangular object from her bag.

Wakamatsu raises an eyebrow. "Er, Seo-senpai. What's that?"

"My DS," she answers in a matter-of-fact tone, waving it around a little. "I'm gonna play for a while."

He would be lying if he says he isn't even a _little_ curious, so Wakamatsu inches towards her a little to see better. Seo uses an R4 card, which he doesn't find totally surprising, and picks _Pokemon Platinum Version_ in her list of games. (Mario Kart is the one above it.) She skips the intro and opens her save; her character is named YUZUKI with all eight badges and more than eighty hours in her playtime.

"You play that a lot," he offers. Seo mumbles something akin to a 'yeah'. Her save file opens up to in front of the Solaceon Day Care, and she opens her party - a slugma is there, along with four other eggs. "Oh, are you breeding something in particular?"

"Shiny poochyena," she replies, before accepting an egg from the old man and starts biking all the way back to the previous town - Hearthome City, was it? Wakamatsu can't quite remember, but decides to hold back and watch, even though he's itching to ask her more. He's fairly sure he wouldn't appreciate being interrupted in the middle (heck, this is only the _beginning_ ) of a game, much less Pokemon.

Seo blinks, looking over at him with a strange expression before offering her DS - wait, _what?_ "Wanna play?"

"What!?" Wakamatsu yells, hoping he doesn't sound as loud as he thinks he does. "I-I mean, not that I don't want to… but it's your game, and, well…"

"You look like you _really_ want to play," Seo says dryly, not retracting her hand. "Well?"

"… Excuse me," Wakamatsu mumbles, timidly accepting the offered gadget. The blonde shrugs, smiling lopsidedly, like she doesn't really care what happens but now that he's done it, she's kind of okay with such. But it's not like Wakamatsu can really say he knows what the girl is thinking… he looks down at the screen, noticing that YUZUKI is standing in front of the Pokemon Center. He goes in and checks her PC first, because he likes to know what he's up against.

Ten full boxes packed with pokemon of all sorts greet him. Wakamatsu wrenches his gaze away from the screen and stares at Seo in a mixture of horror and awe, who is picking at her nails in disinterest. When she notices him staring, she looks up and brightens at the sight of her PC boxes. "Like it? I'm mostly moving those through Pokemon Bank to my Alpha Sapphire, so I can Wonder Trade 'em. Oh, see that one?" She grabs the DS and moves the cursor over to a shiny female Nidoran. Wakamatsu almost has a heart attack. "I got this baby while I was training my Pichu. I don't really care for it, so I'm planning on trading it away on Christmas to some lucky guy. What's with your face, Waka?"

Wakamatsu belatedly realizes that his expression has twisted into something that makes him vaguely resemble a constipated five-year-old. With a cough, he manages to compose himself, and his face, into something a little less traumatized. "Er, it's nothing. Just... it's a shiny Pokemon, Seo-senpai, and you would really just... Wonder Trade it away?"

"Yeah, well-" she shrugs. "It's Christmas. And anyway, the shiny rate in the sixth gen' games are a lot higher, and it's not like I play Platinum a whole lot anymore. Soon as I get my Pooch' here, I'm gonna trade it to myself, and all my other nice 'mons."

"I... I see," Wakamatsu manages. He doesn't have a single shiny Pokemon in his Omega Ruby, and only one in his Version X (a Golett - he had been searching for a female Eevee). "Well, that's nice, I guess. Do you nickname your Pokemon, by the way?"

"Why, do you?" Without waiting for a response, Seo barrels on; "I do, sometimes. Like for the cool ones, or the ones that remind me of other people." She moves to Box 5 and points at a Paras named CHIYO. "Like this one."

"..." Poor Sakura-senpai, Wakamatsu sighs. Seo introduces him to an Empoleon named KASHIMA (Box 1) and a Smeargle named NOZAKI (Box 4) before she hesitates on the control pad. "Seo-senpai? Something wrong?"

"Uh, I've got one named after you, too, but it's somewhere else right now," she mumbles, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself. Wakamatsu wants to ask if someone had replaced her or the sort, but decides he would like to keep his face intact. "Anyway, that's not important. Didn't you want to play?"

"D-Did I?" Wakamatsu asks back, not really meaning it. The sudden topic change had caught him a little off-guard. "Well, thank you, anyway." He retrieves the DS, exits the PC, and starts biking around, wondering what else he could do until the rain stopped. He's halfway back to Solaceon Town to check on what Pokemon Seo had left in the Day Care when one of the eggs hatch. Much to Seo's disappointment, it's a normal Poochyena.

Wakamatsu checks on the newly-hatched Poochyena; it's Naughty natured and has Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Crunch, and Howl as its moveset. "Who's the father?" he asks. Egg Moves these nice don't come along easy.

Seo shrugs. "Arcanine."

Wakamatsu waits for a little longer, expecting her to say something like how she had painstakingly trained it all the way to level one hundred or something like that, but she doesn't elaborate any further. He lets it pass and dumps the Poochyena in Box 10 before checking up on the Pokemon left in the Day Care. Once the old lady starts talking, Seo abruptly stands up, ignoring Wakamatsu's wince at the mud now splattered all over the steps. "Seo-senpai?"

"Bathroom," she says as way of explanation, rushing off into the school without another word, leaving mud tracks everywhere. Wakamatsu scoots away from a patch of muck before looking back down at the DS. Trust Seo Yuzuki to suddenly dash off at the exact moment he started talking to the old lady. What, did she name her Arcanine something embarrassing? Or maybe it's just some level five Arcanine and she was embarrassed by _that_ , too, though Seo doesn't normally get embarrassed. Those two words simply don't go together.

Wakamatsu speeds through the rest of the Day Care lady's text, before the small menu asking for which Pokemon to take out pops up. On top is a female Mightyena, level ninety-seven, and the second one is a Pokemon named...

"... Waka," he mumbles, staring at the four capitalized letters. If Seo isn't lying, then she had named a level ninety-eight Arcanine after him. Wakamatsu withdraws the Arcanine (withdraws _himself?_ ) and checks its stats, just for a bit. Its moveset is Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Crunch, and Close Combat, its nature is Naive, and the small blurb reads 'capable of taking hits'. "Speed and Defense oriented?" he mutters. Speed he can understand, but Defense? Well... it's Seo, he supposes...

"Man, that's embarrassing," a voice grumbles from behind him. Wakamatsu almost jumps and probably would have smashed his head against Seo Yuzuki's chin if he had. The blonde in question takes her seat beside him once more, looking totally nonchalant now - unless he's not imagining the tear in her skirt where her fingernails are ripping right through. (Not that he's looking, of course. It's just... _noticeable_.) "I saw that Growlithe somewhere and thought, hey, that dog looks like something Waka would like! So I kinda... named it after you. Uh, yeah."

Wakamatsu stares at her for a number of seconds (minutes? hours?) before slowly handing the DS back to her. "Um," is all he can manage, before he realizes that's probably not something one should say in this sort of situation. He clears his throat and tries to think of _something_ to say, but really, what _is_ there to say? "Thanks?" It wasn't _meant_ to be a question...

"You're welcome," Seo replies, looking over at him in suspicion. She saves and stuffs the DS back into her bag. "I, uh, I gotta go. The rain's stopped."

It has. Wakamatsu hadn't even noticed. Before he can stop himself, he asks, "Want me to walk you to the station?"

Seo gives him a very strange look, like she's trying to decide whether or not she should whip out her phone and dial the nearest mental hospital. "Whatever you want, Waka."

The walk is awkward, at first. Wakamatsu tries not to think of what had just happened when Seo says, "oh, shit," real casually, and tells him she forgot the homework for Social Studies today and that she's going to have to ask Chiyo about it, unless the girl's off with the lolicon - what's his name, Nozaki? Yeah, him, and she doubts Chiyo would be picking up her phone while she's with that dude. Wakamatsu is just glad the awkwardness has lifted with her usual tactless talk.

* * *

 **Next time: Singing. (More Harry Potter crossovers, just because I _can_. It's also done, but I'll upload it tomorrow.)**

 _ **Slacker, 7/4/15**_


	6. give me something to sing about

**WakaSeo Week, Day 6: Singing. Title from crushcrushcrush - Paramore. (It's another Hogwarts AU! Seo is a second-year, Waka is a first-year. Obviously takes place before Day 4 (Practice).)**

* * *

"Hey... Waka... psst! Waka!"

Alright, some background: Wakamatsu Hirotaka, while he has lived with Muggles for eleven years, and while he has only just recently gone to study in this wizard school, he is still fairly sure that witches and wizards don't normally wake each other up by sneaking into one another's dormitories in the middle of the night and then whispering in their ear. He nearly falls out of his bed, but instead opts to immediately shift the blankets over his head. Maybe that will deter his attacker.

It does absolutely nothing. "Waka, come _on!_ " His blanket is yanked away from him very rudely, and when he blinks his eyes open timidly, a pair of amber ones stare back at him. "That was _rude_ , you don't just _put your blanket up_ when someone's _talking_ to you."

"It's also very rude to _wake people up in the middle of the night,_ " Wakamatsu retorts, trying not to quail under the gaze of Seo Yuzuki. "What are you _doing_ here, Seo-senpai? I was just going to sleep!"

Seo rolls her eyes and straightens her back, having been leaning over to face Wakamatsu earlier. She stretches her arms a little, before looking back down at the still unmoving student. " _Well_...? Are you gonna get up or what?"

" _Why should I!?_ " He sighs and looks around, making sure he hadn't woken anyone up. "What do you want, Seo-senpai? If you wanted something, surely it could have waited a little?"

"No, this is important," Seo says primly, drawing herself up to her full height. Wakamatsu supposes it must be the pureblood instinct in her. Then she glances around cautiously, before leaning over to hiss in his ear; "There's a three-headed dog in the school."

Wakamatsu almost, _almost_ screams like a baby and ducks back under the covers, but he's fairly sure that if he does that, Seo would only pick on him more. So he manages a nervous, shaky laugh. "S-Seo-senpai?"

She shakes her head, seemingly having expected his reaction. "I'm not kidding. You wanna see? It's in the third floor corridor on the right side of the school, the thing ol' Dumbles warned us about."

"' _Ol' Dumbles_ '?" Wakamatsu asks, aghast. Then he repeats what Seo had just said to him, and makes a frightened squeak. "T-The thing in the third floor..."

" _Yes!_ " Seo all but squeals. "That's why we should _totally_ head over there _right now_. C'mon, don't you want to go on an adventure? It's midnight! It's the perfect time to sneak up there!"

"We'll _die!_ "

"Waka, come _on_ ," Seo persists, sticking out her lower lip and pushing her face closer to his. Wakamatsu just places his palm on her face and pushes her away in response. "Ah! Fine, I'll just take someone else with me, though none of my girl friends wanna go. Tanaka? Yamamura?"

"What? Hey, hold on!" Wakamatsu yelps. "Tanaka hates dogs, and Yamamura is super slow at running!"

"Best choice for me, right there, then," Seo muses, like she's simply talking about the weather and not which first-year to bring to a suicide mission. "Boosts the thrill."

"Stop! Stop it!" Wakamatsu whisper-shouts, springing up from his bed. "I-I'll go, geez!" Wait, he thinks, what am I doing? Am I actually _agreeing_ to accompany _Seo Yuzuki-senpai_ to go take on a _three-headed dog_ with _no_ information on how to subdue it? If this is _really_ what his life is turning out to be, being a wizard and all, then maybe he'd be much happier going back to the Muggles.

Before he can take back what he had just said, though, Seo is already grinning and pulling her wand out from her cloak, clearly prepared. " _Awesome!_ Alright, get dressed, come on come on come on. I'll make us invisible with this charm!"

Wakamatsu grabs the nearest cloak he can find, which also thankfully turns out to be his darkest cloak, and shoves it on. " _Invisible?_ "

Seo nods, before tapping Wakamatsu on the head with her wand. Nothing seems to happen until a few seconds, when he winces at the feeling of a raw egg being cracked atop his head. When he looks down on his arm, there's nothing there - like he had turned into some sort of human chameleon.

"Isn't it cool?" Seo smirks, clearly pleased with herself. "It's the Disillusionment Charm, the Seo family specialty, _and_ a seventh-year spell." She puffs her chest out. "Anyway, I didn't think it would work that well. I've never actually tried it and had it work on other people before."

"You mean I could have gotten hurt," Wakamatsu says.

"Well, yeah, but whatever, right?" She shrugs, then twirls her wand around herself like she's wrapping herself in rope. In a few seconds, she disappears too. "Aight, there we go. Just head over to the corridor, _obviously_ \- if Filch or that awful cat comes along, we'll split up. Got it? You might wanna put on some perfume that smells really bad, too, I don't know. Maybe it could make Mrs. Norris think it's just some dirt around the hallway instead of a person."

Wakamatsu, once more, reevaluates his life choices.

* * *

"How do you take down a three-headed dog, anyway, Seo-senpai?" Wakamatsu whispers, now thoroughly regretting ever having decided to be friends with the Slytherin.

She glances over at him, looking almost bored as she makes her way through the school hallways expertly. "You sing," she says, matter-of-fact. "It's not that hard. Just leave it to me!"

"Alright," he allows, trying not to think of the one time he had strayed near the Slytherin common room and heard the most awful singing come from there once Seo had gone in. "Well- why do you want to go in there, anyhow? It's a total suicide mission, really, and we're _eleven-year-olds_..."

"I'm twelve," Seo says defensively. "And anyway, the only one who's in any real danger is you, Waka. You're a Hufflepuff, the dog'll definitely come after you first."

"Thanks. Real reassuring," Wakamatsu says, blocking all the gruesome scenes that start flooding his head. "Well... really... how about I just stay outside? I don't need to go _in_ , right? Just... outside? You know, moral support?"

"It's not as fun with no one but the dog around," Seo whines. She sounds a little further off, now, so Wakamatsu hurries forward while doing his best not to rush _too_ much, lest he run straight into the girl. "Well, you can just stick near the door, but make sure you don't let it open or anything. Wouldn't want anyone to hear the thing, now, would we?"

He frowns, still not completely satisfied, but knows that's probably the best he's going to get out of her. "Okay, then." Then he stops abruptly, because _they're there_. They're right in front of the corridor that will most likely lead to their _deaths_ if Seo isn't correct. He takes a deep breath. "You... You're sure you're going to be able to put it to sleep, right, Seo-senpai?"

"Oh, please," she says, waving her hand in the air nonchalantly. "Of course I do. As soon as I go in, you come in right after me and close the door, alright? It might start barking and everything and someone might hear and come running. Got it?"

"Yes," Wakamatsu answers timidly, wringing his hands together and praising God Seo can't see how much he's sweating right now. "C... Close the door. Yes, yeah, um, I understand... please just hurry up already, would you, senpai?"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya." And before he can do _anything else_ to prepare himself for an inevitably gruesome death, Seo unlocks the door with a lofty _alohomora_ and kicks it open. She darts in, leaving Wakamatsu with nary a second to stumble inside as well and shut the door just in time, as loud snarling suddenly fills the air. He gulps and backs away, feeling the urge to curl into a tiny ball and run away as fast as he can, even if the very, _very_ large dog can't see him... unless Seo's spell had deactivated...

He looks down at his arms. They're still invisible, but when he glances over to the side, he notices that Seo's fully visible - her blonde hair is hard to miss, even with the minimal light. She's practically cackling, running circles around the dog while it snaps and lunges at her at every given opportunity. Wakamatsu has _no_ idea how Seo manages to dodge each leap; it might have something to do with her small frame and practice from being in the Quidditch team, but she looks totally in her nature. Wakamatsu wants to yell at her to sing a song already, but he can't bring himself to say so. Maybe it's because he doesn't want that maniacal smile to go away. Most probably, it's because he doesn't want to risk revealing himself to the three-headed dog.

Just when he's fairly sure Seo is going to simply run around the dog for the entire night, she suddenly opens her mouth and belts out a tune that Wakamatsu is _sure_ he's heard before. Or maybe it's just because his mind is suddenly clouding. Why was he feeling so sleepy? It's hard to keep himself focused, and he realizes he's curled up in his customary sleeping position when the dog crumples to the ground as well, causing a loud _thud_ that Wakamatsu is sure should have woken up the entire castle. In a matter of seconds, Seo is in front of him and shaking him awake rather rudely. "Hey, hey, Waka! What's wrong with _you?_ Did you get hit by the doggie or something?"

Belatedly, Wakamatsu notices the Disillusionment Charm had faded, as he can very clearly see his arm now. "Ah... uh... no, it's fine, I mean, I'm alright. W-What about you, Seo-senpai!? Are you hurt or anything?" He starts checking her for injuries as thoroughly as he can, like how his parents always used to do when he played with the other boys before he came to Hogwarts. He doesn't find anything worth dragging her to Madam Pomfrey for, except for the fact that she was out of breath. "T-That song..."

"Hm?" She cocks her head to the side, standing up, now that it's clear Wakamatsu isn't harmed. "I made it. But anyway, look at that!" She points excitedly to a trapdoor that had been unnoticed until now, running over towards it despite Wakamatsu's weak protests. (He vaguely notices she's limping slightly. Great.) "I didn't know this was here! I bet there's something _super_ valuable down here. Let's go!"

" _No_ ," Wakamatsu says firmly, dragging her by the sleeve of her robe. Seo whines a number of complaints, but doesn't try wrenching herself free aside from a few halfhearted attempts. It's clear that, while her speed and agility is to be envied, her endurance isn't any better than that of a normal twelve-year-old as she's still breathing quick and fast. "You're tired, see, Seo-senpai? Let's get you to bed, alright?" He's about to ease the door open when his eye catches a small glint on the blonde's ankle that was half-hidden by the hem of her robes. "Seo-senpai..."

Seo shifts ever so subtly, bronze eyes remaining fixedly on his face. The problem is that Wakamatsu knows Seo well enough that she _never_ exactly focuses on one thing for a very long period of time unless she's got something to hide. "... What?"

"Your ankle..."

"It's nothing," she says, perhaps a second too quickly for it to be believable.

Wakamatsu frowns. "You might be able to fool your housemates, but not me. There is _no way_ you aren't getting that treated."

"It's, like, tiny, Waka! Come on!"

Before he can stop himself, Wakamatsu gets down on his knees and lifts the hem of Seo's robes quite ungentlemanly. She makes a mortified noise and automatically pulls herself away from him, but Wakamatsu had _seen_ that large gash. He reckons she got it when she had miscalculated and one of the dog's sharp claws had grazed her. At the very least, she wasn't bleeding her pure blood all over the floor, which was a massive relief. Wakamatsu scoops her up in his arms, and pushes the door open with his foot slowly. There's not a person in the hallway, and he darts towards the direction of the infirmary as fast as he can manage.

Seo is kicking and screaming. Quite literally. Wakamatsu is praying to any god listening that Filch or Mrs. Norris didn't catch them. "Put me _down_ , Waka! Put me down or _so help me_ I will _hex you to kingdom come_ -"

Something meows behind them. Wakamatsu freezes and turns to look at the cat, who looks almost _smug_. Seo pauses in her threats for a moment, before hissing, " _Run_."

Wakamatsu doesn't think he's ever run as fast as he had before. Seo, in contrast to just seconds before, is whooping and cheering him on, which he's pretty sure doesn't help with the situation. They hide out under the infirmary beds after Seo had _alohomora_ 'd their way in Wakamatsu repeatedly tells himself to _never_ accompany Seo Yuzuki to dangerous tasks _ever_ again.

* * *

 **Next time: AU/Free-For-All. (If you've read the HoriKashi Week fic, Day 6 (Teamwork), then it takes place right after the ending.) (Also: more notes about Witch!Seo on my AO3.)**

 _ **Slacker, 7/5/14**_


End file.
